The expansion and maintenance of electricity distribution networks generates large amounts of waste, much of it in the form of discarded insulators that are not reused or recycled. This paper describes the results of tests on used and new ceramic and polymeric insulators to verify if their exposure to weathering justifies their replacement. In new and used ceramic insulators, properties such as contact angle, relative density, porosimetry, dilatometry and X-ray diffraction patterns showed no differences or the differences that were found could not be related to their use. The discarded ceramic material showed high thermal stability, an interesting characteristic for application as chamotte. It can also be reused to replace gravel used in substations. In polymeric insulators, thermogravimetry, differential scanning calorimetry and relative density test results suggest degradation of used material compared to new. This would justify their replacement and discard as waste, but they show little recycling potential.

Bottle grade virgin PET (polyethylene terephthalate) resin was investigated through five consecutive injection molding steps to simulate recycling cycles. Tests were carried out after each recycling to evaluate degradation, crystallinity (by density and Differential Scanning Calorimetry-DSC measurements), hardness, and tensile and flexural properties. Consecutive recycling resulted in cumulative chain breaks caused by the material's contact with degrading agents such as temperature, oxygen, mechanical stresses, light, and water. In the fifth recycling step, for example, the number of carboxylic end groups, an indicator of the extent of chain-break, tripled in comparison to the initial molecule. The smaller chains that were formed fit more easily among the larger ones, thus increasing the percentage of crystalline phase in the structure. These two changes in the polymer's structure explained the recycled products' final properties, i.e., the injected samples became progressively harder and more fragile in each recycling step.